Serious questions need to be asked about NCEA Level 1 which has created an unfair two-tier system, Education Minister Erica Stanford says.

Listen here on Morning Report: Education Minister on NCEA level one concerns

She says serious variability issues have been exposed for schools around the country and it was trying to be "everything to everyone".

Stanford was speaking to Morning Report after the Education Review Office called for a rethink of NCEA Level 1 that could include ditching the qualification.

In a report released on Tuesday morning, the review office said it was critically important that Level 1 was changed because an overhaul introduced this year was not working.

The report said the qualification was not fair or reliable, it confused families, and more than a quarter of schools did not offer it.

Stanford said it was an excellent report that provided the basis for reform.

It showed the worrying situation of students stopping their learning part-way through the year either because they couldn't reach achieve or because they had achieved enough.

Ditching it was an option.

"Three years of high-stakes assessment is really tough on our kids so we do need to consider ourselves in line with other countries and look at what they're doing. We're one of the only countries that does that."

A two-tier system was being created with high decile schools "voting with their feet" and walking away from it while lower decile schools retained it.

The report also showed 70 percent of employers had little faith that Level 1 equipped students with the right knowledge or skills.

As well, only 20 percent of school leavers aged 15 or 16 achieved Level 1.

It was trying to be "everything to everyone", Stanford said.

"Trying to be a step up to Level 2 and it's trying to be a leaver's certificate and in the end it's nothing to anybody."

Stanford has been working with an advisory group of principals and has also approached the opposition to get an agreement on a bipartisan policy.

"It's too important, our national qualification, to be flip-flopping on ...I think we're [the government and Labour] broadly on the same page about the direction on where we need to go and we'll work closely together on it.

"It's too important to get it wrong."

Stanford said she came into the portfolio hearing schools were ill-prepared for the changes being introduced at the start of the year.

This year had been "a disaster" with only 40 percent of schools ready to implement the revamped Level 1.

It had been too late to prevent the changes going ahead, however, she had asked ERO to produce the report that had now exposed the scale of the problems.

'Not a reliable measure'

The ERO's evaluation centre head Ruth Shinoda said her office was concerned by the standard of what was being offered in Level 1 at present.

"That's because it's just not yet a reliable measure and it's not entirely fair."

Listen here on Morning Report: Govt needs to consider dropping NCEA level one: ERO

It was not setting up students well for their futures, with students saying the credits they earned were not an equal amount of work.

Students were twice as likely to do well for an internal assessment compared with an external one, she told Morning Report.

"Most importantly, it's not setting them up for Level 2, so three-quarters of schools say it's not setting them up for next year's learning."

Some improvements, such as larger credits with more in-depth learning and improved literacy-numeracy emphasis, had worked.

However, there needed to be a decision on the role of Level 1 - should it be a foundational qualification for those 15 and 16-year-olds moving on to employment or other pathways, or should it be an academic step up to the next stages.

"We need to decide because at the moment it's not really achieving either of those things."

'Trying to be all things to all people'

Secondary Principals Association president Vaughan Couillault said the report was an accurate assessment of what the education sector was facing and the fact that Levels 1, 2 and 3 did not align.

Listen here on Morning Report: Secondary Principals Association on NCEA level one criticism

Regarding Level 1, there were structural problems between one standard and another with some students required to put in a lot more hours for an assignment compared with others studying a different subject.

"If you've got a piece of work that is worth five credits there should be consistency on what's required in terms of effort. That's on the adults to get this right."

Couillault agreed it was "trying to be all things to all people" and it should be decided what its main goal was.

He did not favour it being a leaver's certificate.

"We've got to have a conversation about what we want Level 1 to do."

He agreed with Standford's ambition to sort out the curriculum issues first and then getting the assessment over the top of that later. - RNZ